North Korea yesterday fired two short-range missiles into the sea, South Korea’s military said, the first weapons launches in more than two months and an apparent effort to pressure Washington as the two sides struggle to restart nuclear negotiations.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the missiles were fired from near the eastern coastal town of Wonsan and flew about 430km and 690km respectively before landing off the nation’s east coast.
South Korea’s military earlier said that both missiles flew 430km, but the trajectory for one was revised based on a joint South Korean-US analysis.
Photo: AP
South Korean officials said that the missiles were both short-range.
A South Korean defense official, requesting anonymity because of department rules, said that an initial analysis showed both missiles were fired from mobile launchers and flew at a maximum altitude of 50km.
North Korea is unhappy over planned US-South Korean military drills that it says are preparation for an invasion. The missile tests might be meant as a warning to Washington.
They came as many in the US were focused on testimony before the US Congress by former special counsel Robert Mueller about his two-year probe into Russian election interference.
A day earlier, White House National Security Adviser John Bolton left Seoul after agreeing with South Korean officials to work closely to achieve North Korea’s denuclearization.
“North Korea appears to be thinking its diplomacy with the US isn’t proceeding in a way that they want. So they’ve fired missiles to get the table to turn in their favor,” Korea Research Institute for National Strategy analyst Kim Dae-young said.
However, North Korea does not appear to be pulling away from US-led diplomacy aimed at curbing its nuclear program, analysts said.
The relatively short distance traveled by the missiles suggests the launches were not intended as a major provocation, unlike a test of a long-range missile capable of reaching the US mainland.
North Korea has been urging the US and South Korea to scrap their military drills. Last week, North Korea said it could lift its 20-month suspension of nuclear and long-range missile tests in response to the drills.
Some experts said that North Korea is trying to get an upper hand ahead of a possible resumption of talks.
Pyongyang wants widespread sanctions relief so it can revive its dilapidated economy.
US officials want significant steps toward disarmament before they will relinquish the leverage provided by the sanctions.
A senior US official said the administration of US President Donald Trump was aware of the reported launches.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the administration had no further comment.
South Korean Ministry of National Defense spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo urged Pyongyang to stop acts that are “not helpful to efforts to ease military tensions on the Korean Peninsula.”
The UN Security Council has typically imposed fresh sanctions on North Korea only when it has conducted long-range ballistic missile tests.
If it did, that could have ramifications, because UN Security Council resolutions ban North Korea from engaging in any launch using ballistic technology.
“If they were ballistic missiles, they violate the UN resolutions and I find it extremely regrettable,” Japanese Minister of Defense Takeshi Iwaya told reporters in Tokyo.
It was the first missile launch since Seoul said North Korea fired three short-range missiles off its east coast in early May.
At the time, many experts said those missiles strongly resembled the Russian-designed Iskander, a short-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile that has been in the Russian arsenal for more than a decade.
Seoul-based Institute for Far Eastern Studies analyst Kim Dong-yub said that the latest missiles could be Scud-C ballistic missiles or KN-23 surface-to-surface missiles, a North Korean version of the Iskander.
During a third summit at the inter-Korean border late last month, Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to resume the nuclear negotiations that had been deadlocked since their second summit in Vietnam in February.
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